


Retrograde

by Mook_aron



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU is AU, Giant rats, Konoha Village, Multi, Naruto AU, OC, Reincarnation, Rin screws up canon because she doesn’t want to die, SI, SI screws up canon, Self-Insert, Summoning contracts, WIP, naruto - Freeform, reincarnated soul, what to heck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-19 03:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14865858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mook_aron/pseuds/Mook_aron
Summary: Being reborn was not a gig I'd signed up for.Being reborn as the lynchpin of the Naruto plot was definitely not on my agenda.Too bad it was happening anyway.





	Retrograde

**Author's Note:**

> Hey thanks for checking out my work!! I'm really glad to have you here!!

So, I should state something, to begin with. Clans are completely and utterly insane, and any dealings with them are automatically bullshit.

 

Nohara Mai had been a well-respected chuunin before all of this clan drama baloney had taken place, with a comfortable mission routine and small savings plan to carry her well into her hopeful retirement. To clarify, I should probably explain how my mother’s trouble with the Inuzuka and Uchiha clans first started- and how I fit into all of this.

 

Nohara Mai was the only child- and daughter- of the Nohara clan head, which had been a shame to her traditionalist father who had only ever wanted a son to carry on the family name. Her mother had been unable to bear more children- but _‘husband dear, she’ll be able to marry into a prestigious clan and think of the honour!’_. Bah, I don’t know how she stood it.

Her parents, for all their political scheming, had doted on their only child and she was never left adrift in training or support. At age 5, she was promised to an Uchiha clansman over 10 years her senior- a concept she was none too happy with, truth be told. She was presented in an omiai to her prospective partner, face to face with Uchiha Fugaku.

And she was so not okay with that. The second son of the Uchiha head family- that’s a big giant no to all that responsibility. But with her clan presenting her, and the Uchiha accepting- it’s not a match she can easily fight when she’s five years and untrained. So she leaves it for another day- but I’ll come back to that, it’s the entire crux of this tale after all.

My mother graduated at age 9- not entirely uncommon for a wartime era and rose to chuunin just a few years later. She was on a team that worked well- very, very well. Hatake Sakumo was a cute teen, from what I can see from the team photo that once sat on my mother’s shelf and so was the small section of face I could see on Aburame Shinosuke. Mother never wanted to talk about her sensei, a ripped hole in the team photo that said far more than her mild words on the subject whenever I asked. I always thought she must’ve loved him, for all that she refused to talk of him. Her face used to go far, far away as she softly rebuked me asking time after time, an expression that often made when she talked of my father as well.

The edges of the photo show a crooked, sharp-toothed smile and red points, though I can’t see any more than that. For a long, I was sure he’s the same man as my father but it would be many years before it was proven to me.

My mother fell in love- with who, she never outright told me but I knew from the glares and gazed of the village, that it had to have been someone important- and unavailable. But it sparked a series of events that isolated her almost entirely from her family, and that of her prospective match. For my mother took a step that, for the most part, was selfish and foolish.

Oh, but to be a fool in love. My mother fell in love and married, against tradition and against contracts and against everyone who mattered- she married the man who would be the Clan head of the Inuzuka. When I was young, when the drama was old enough to have gathered dust, it was still a topic of conversation among the ladies of the households. Of Nohara Mai who had loved an Inuzuka man and let him go because he had a duty to the village- but he left her with the next head of the Inuzuka clan resting in her belly. A fact that would be fought over for the first 15 years of my life.

The Inuzuka, unlike most clans, were matriarchal and fiercely so. Pack structures were rigid but strong- the alpha female held almost all the power in the pack, for her pups had precedence over every other pup in the pack and they had the best chance of survival. And lucky me, my mother gave birth to a baby girl- the first living daughter of the Inuzuka clan head, who had no sister’s and therefore was the heir.

Which, in a roundabout way, made me the heir to the Inuzuka clan. Which, I gotta say outright, sucks majorly. You wouldn’t believe the number of political shenanigans one has to wade through as a potential heir to a clan. It was simply tedious and I wanted absolutely none of it.

Now, let's’ get back to the Uchiha omiai issue. My mother was still promised to the now clan-head of that particular clan- Uchiha Fugaku. Except, in a roundabout way, she’d voided the marriage contract. Which, I always got the impression, she’d hoped would support her and unfortunately, the Uchiha were highly traditional- and very offended. Offended enough, to cancel a marriage contract that had sat for over 12 years and through many political dramas.

So, my mother raised me. By herself, living off a small pension and the money my father would send when he could. I may have been a bastard- but I was his bastard, and blood loyalty seemed to run deeper than pride in the Inuzuka clan. No matter what, my mother always derided that money- cheap money for raising an heir, she would say to his face. I always got the feeling that my mother hadn’t willingly broken her marriage to Inuzuka Shippo. I had the sneaking suspicion that I was most definitely right, from the way spittle dripped down his face and my mother’s sharp voice telling him to leave when he tried to visit me.

I feel like I would’ve like to have known my father. He had the kind, happy eyes of a good man and a soft smile. I was jealous of Inuzuka Hana, who I saw with him around town. I wished- well, no matter. That’s not part of this tale, not right now.

And that, is how I came to be born. And who am I, dear reader?

Perhaps, it would be better to instead say who I had been- and that was a very messy can of worms.

oOoOoOo

There was a belief, in my old life and among some very odd people, that spirits didn’t exist as we thought they did. The stones were porous and could record ‘snapshots’ of heightened life, played back seemingly at random over the years. Almost like a tape, recorded into the very fabric of the natural world- nature’s very own tape-recorder. It had always fascinated me, this theory that the world was so malleable, changeable. Perhaps it had given me hope that this world could actually change, that I could make a difference.

 

Maybe one day, I would leave a mark big enough to be recorded in the world around me. At the height of my greatest moments, someday in the distant future, somebody would know.

Those particular thoughts crashed and died the same day a pair of headlights ended my thoughts for good.

Or so I thought.

 

Death isn’t a pit of hellfire, nor is the white heaven- death is nothingness. There is nothing, no pressure- no colour and shape. I was formless and floating, cast into an abyss from which there seemed no return. I stared long into the abyss and I knew it gazed back every moment of the infinity I floated between existence and the abyss.

Most of the stories I know start with a dark beginning-cast from society, having nothing from the get-go and building a life from the rubble. Women and men, children who start from the dust and grow into wonders beyond imagining.

My story is not like this. My story starts with happiness, with the bittersweet realisation of reincarnation and what my life had become. It begins with a smiling woman, holding me close and whispering my name sweetly as I giggle up at her. Her face is round, blurry but I can see the warmth that spills from her eyes, undercut by wide purple blocks of colour. Those trigger something in some part of me, a small split from the happy delirium that was my early childhood. Infantile amnesia was only applicable if your mind was actually infantile, it turned out. If anyone ever believed me when I said I was reincarnated (unlikely), I would study that. Did the age of a soul contribute to the likelihood of infantile amnesia?

Infantile amnesia only really applies if you have the mental capacity of an infant as well- being a reincarnated 22-year old didn’t qualify me for that apparently. Being pressed and pushed and twisted made me glad for infantile flexibility- my joints weren’t fully developed yet and couldn’t be damaged by the pain of being compressed out of a very tight space. Specifically, my mother’s womb. And by the gods, I hope I would forget that.

Did every soul remember their previous lives? Maybe we all did, but infantile amnesia robbed us of that distinction between lives and worlds and families long since lost? Was there some mystical process between one life and the next, blotting out the stains of our lives- so we emerged as a blank slate for this new world to mark?

So why did I recall my old life- days spent searching the shore for bubbles left by crabs in the sand? Of a dark-skinned child, squealing and chased by my father, snatched up with solid arms and tickled until I laughed and cried?

Because I was no longer who I was. Gone were the scars of life, little nicks from daily wear and tear, the marks from the darkest and lowest points of my life. The freckles on my hands were no longer there, in their place lay smooth and unblemished skin stretched across small hands.

It took me painfully long to become aware of where I was. My vision was blurry and unfocused, but even I could only ignore the truth in front of me for so long. A piece of fabric tied my mother’s hair back, emblazoned with a metallic plate and an etched spiral. A leaf.

Of all the universes and worlds, it just had to be this one, didn’t it?

And if the marks on my mother’s face were anything to go by, it didn’t bode well for my continued survival in this world. I could only delude myself for so long, it seemed. So I guess I had better start again.

Hi, I’m Nohara Rin and I’m 3 years old today. If I do nothing from this day onwards, I’m going to die by the time I’m 14.

But I’m not going to do nothing. Oh, far from it.

This world won’t know what has hit it after I’m done.

I’m Nohara Rin and I refuse to die.

Not before I’m good and ready.

 

oOoOoOo

If you asked anyone on the street, they would all tell you the same things about me.

‘Oh, that little thing? She’s such a sweetheart! So helpful- but she’s so quiet...’

‘Oh, Rin-chan? So driven and talented! Her mother is so proud of her!’

‘Between you and I, she scares me. She doesn’t look at me with the eyes of a 5-year-old..’

‘And her father? What a scandal?!’

‘I heard that Nohara-san rebuked him- he who has been paying her bills! The nerve of the woman!’

They were right, quite honestly. I’d tried, for a little while, to mould myself into the perfect copy of Rin. Who knew what would happen if I changed too much of The Plot? As for my father- well, that was a topic best left unthought of. It certainly made my mother angry enough to dissuade questions about him. As for my father paying bills- well, he’d tried. I think the money was still sitting in the account my mother had made for me, as if she couldn’t bring herself to touch it.

I really did try. I tried so hard to curb my fear, to from myself into that sweet and kind child who had caused wars. But I couldn’t.

That lasted all of 2 months, all of which was torture. I sat on my hands, struggling to overcome the urge to run and climb and fight, to channel chakra until my hands were numb. I couldn’t hold myself in- I was a woman. Child of action.

So I ran and climbed, I fought and threw and swung a training sword. I channelled chakra through my hands until my tenketsu burned and my control sputtered out, till my fingers bled from chakra burns and my mother hovered like a mother-hen, eyes wide and worried. She was a ninja- she knew training. But not this frenetic, over-zealous surge of fear-induced training.

My mother was Mai, an off-roster and off-active duty jounin. She was short and slim and strong. I’d seen her slice through a tree once, with a blade and channelled chakra. I knew she was intelligent and observant. She never tried to stop me from training, though she helped me drag my exhausted body into bed every night and scrubbed bloodstains out of my training clothes, fed my voracious appetite and said nothing of the bruises on my knuckles.

She knew, just as I did, that nothing she could say would stop the fervour of my training.

One night, I came with bloody hands and chakra burns up to my elbows. My mother’s soft face had thinned and she had cleaned my hands for me, bid me goodnight and disappeared into the house.

A small library of scrolls decorated my desk when I awoke in the morning, topics ranging from vital anatomy points and medical textbooks to fuuinjutsu and advanced chakra control. Even with as little as I knew about this world, I knew this was a veritable goldmine. I said so, as I dived into my rice in the morning.

“Thank you, kaa-chan. The books you gave me are really useful.” My mother paused in the kitchen, her gaze flicking to mine as a sharp and mischievous smile spread across her face, a smile that did nothing to quell the apprehension that rose in me.

“I hope it has been useful- you’ll need all of it during training today.”

oOoOoOo

I’d never seen my mum in full gear before- it was hard to align the two images I now had of my mother. With a wooden katana strapped to her back and form-fitting gear on, she looked as far from my seemingly civilian mother as I had ever seen her.

We stood below the maple tree that shaded our courtyard, the end of autumn leaves piling in gold and red around the flagstone yard. The stones were chill below my toes with the hint of winter and I stood barefoot in front of my mother, my own wooden practice weapon strapped to my back and I fought the urge to itch beneath her scrutiny. Her brown eyes were sharp, shredding my form and posture- fidgeting wasn’t likely to improve her assessment.

“You have a weak core, Rin-chan. You’ve been neglecting it, haven’t you?” Her voice was even but the tint of disapproval clouding her tone had my cheeks reddening in embarrassment  
.

“A-a, kaa-chan. I can’t seem to get my muscles strong enough there and I didn’t know how to make them better. I-i had been focusing on flexibility because the boys at the park said I should rely on that to be a better kunoichi one day.”

My mother’s face had tightened at that and I tentatively half-smiled, wondering what I’d said that had triggered that reaction.

“Rin-chan, you don’t have to rely on flexibility- I can help you build that strength. But it’s not going to be easy.” Mum had moved closer as she spoke, crouching down so her face was level with mine and her eyes were focused, intent- it was like trying to stare into the sun and I could only blink back. “I want to make you strong, Rin-chan. Can you give me everything you have so I can help you become strong?”

Mum had never been like this before, so strong and stern and it made me want to sweat every drop of blood in my body, just to make myself strong- and to make her proud.

I nodded, eyes wide and I’m sure I must’ve looked a little dazed. “Yes, sensei!”

Mum’s mouth quirked into a mischievous smirk at that and indicated for me to draw my practice katana, as she assumed a position and guided me through it. She started from scratch, correcting every minor mistake and pointed out little changes- how turning my toes in during this pose would improve my balance in the strike and that turning those same toes outward a few degrees would make my strike faster. I learned every trick she knew, every minute change that would allow my body to outperform itself every time.

We started in the early morning and finished weapons at midday, every morning it was the same. I rose with my mother, at the very crack of dawn and even as frost began to crack across the flagstones- still, I practised. I spent my afternoons absorbing as much of what my mother could teach me as possible. I learned history and dexterity games, hand seals and flexibility drills, teaching me how to act as someone I was not. I practised my characters, repeated each stroke until my hands burned and my eyes ached from concentration.

I learned to channel chakra through my stomach first, drawing it like spider-silk into my hands. My chakra levels were above average- to be expected, I had been experimenting ever since I was young. I formed chakra into lines, stretched it as far from my skin as I could and bit back tears every time I failed and red lines seeped across my hands.

I trained from dawn till dusk every day I could, worked myself to the bone and till my chakra levels were exhausted. I trained with such single-minded intensity, that it was actually a surprise when I stumbled across Uchiha Obito.

I’d almost completely forgotten why I was fighting so hard against my fate, against what The Plot had planned for me. And here was part of that reason, sprawled across the ground near my own landing spot.

“I’m so sorry!” I helped the goggle-sporting young boy to his feet, brushing off my clothes as I did so and with red cheeks, smiled sheepishly at the Uchiha boy. “I-i wasn’t paying very much attention to where I was going Uchiha-san!”

I bowed politely, actually chastened that I hadn’t been paying enough attention to my surroundings to the extent that I’d let myself collide with someone. And then it dawned on me, who I had run into. Images of a distant future flashed before my eyes, as thousands died and millions more suffered because this boy broke. Broke into so many unsalvageable pieces because Nohara Rin sacrificed herself to stop a war. Well, fat chance that would be me.

Obito was as red-cheeked as I was, as he scratched the back of his hand and waved his other hand frantically. “N-no, no, it’s my fault. Obaa-san has been yelling at me to pay attention for years but it hasn’t really… stuck, I guess. I’m sorry for running into you, a-a..?”

I froze for a moment, wondering if this was what started my path to death. If I accepted this boy, this smiling and bashful and innocent boy, into my life- was I just tempting Fate at that point? This boy could grow to be insane, out of control and an overgrown menace to the world- if I died. But what choice did I have, in the long term? I could influence everything from this moment forward- I would either orchestrate my own downfall or avoid it by the skin of my teeth.

Decision made, I bowed politely once again and smiled brightly. “Nohara Rin, pleased to meet you!” One could almost see the stars in Obito’s eyes as he stammered out his own name in reply and something about maybe playing some game? I looked up at the sky and cringed, my internal clock ticking down until my mother killed me for being late.

“Obito-kun, I am sorry but I’m late for training! Do you want to meet here tomorrow and we’ll find something to play?” I brushed a strand of brown hair out of my eyes and waited for the shell-shocked boy to figure out how to speak.

“S-sure Rin-san! See you here at the ninth bell?”

I was already halfway down the street, dust flying from my heels but I was certain he’d heard my distant approval of the plan.

 

oOoOoOoOo

My mother was less than pleased that I was late, as the collection of bruises from her bokken later attested, but it seemed all was forgiven after I told her the reason I was late. Her jaw had dropped and a thin row had arched as I informed her that I had made a friend and he wanted me to go play a game tomorrow.

I do think I treasured for a long time, seeing my normally composed mother lose her grip on her demeanour. It almost made the disaster of the next day worth it.


End file.
